From: Verity Pane

Under FOI I seek the terms of reference for the DVA Robert Cornell advocacy study, or if DVA claim they do not exist, I seek copy of any contract with Robert Cornell DVA currently has, and any document that DVA holds that refers to the commissioning of work from Robert Cornell about DVA’s use of legal services.

There is a public interest in these documents given DVA legal services expenditure skyrocketed by another $3.33 million in FY17/18, on top of the high $10.27 million in the previous financial year, with $9.44 million of that (again another skyrocketing increase) on external legal services.

Taxpayers have a right to know why DVA, which is such a small agency, spends excessively on litigation and overuse of external legal service providers, especially when - again for a small agency - it has an in-house legal staff (including internal barristers) exceeding more than 20 legal practitioners.

The evidence certainly is that DVA does not act as a model litigant, but rather has relationships of benefit to three external legal services providers in particular, that have more to do with unofficial benefits certain individuals within DVA derive from overuse of these very expensive services.